A Few Thoughts On Expectations About Priests, Vocations, Giving Scandal

During my thirty years as a Benedictine monk, and over twenty years as a Catholic priest, I am well accustomed to receiving strong criticism and even mocking condemnation for being “part of the hierarchy,” or for being “a member of the clergy,” and so on. More usually, however, I have encountered quiet indifference or cool tolerance. One learns to live with such attitudes, and understand them within the context of a culture which is largely hostile to the spiritual life in general, and to “organized religion” in particular. And apparently to many people in America, a Catholic priest--regardless of what he thinks or does--is part of “organized religion.” Furthermore, every priest must bear some of the weight of shame, if not guilt, for the scandals given to faithful and to those outside the Church.

More difficult to deal with, at least for me, has been an attitude of naive respect for me and for every Catholic priest, especially when this attitude is expressed by words suggesting that “all priests are holy,” or “we just assume that priests do not sin,” and so on. People who cling to this attitude, in light of concrete evidence, are setting themselves up for strong disillusionment when the light finally dawns on them that priests and religious in the Church are first and foremost human beings, and that all human beings are in the same boat: we are somewhere between holiness and wickedness or vice, between God and sheer selfishness. Viewed morally or ethically, religious or members of the clergy (Catholic or Protestant) may be no better or worse, overall, than a general sample of the population in a given culture. In short, lay people, religious, and clergy all far short of the Gospel of Christ.

To put the matter more concretely: If I do well well, appreciate the good deeds and “give glory to God.” If I do wrong, then I am responsible for that wrong-doing, and I do not ask for you or for anyone to white-wash my wrong-doing and say, “But he’s a priest! He could not have done that.” Truthfulness and a firm grip on reality honor the Creator far better than starry-eyed, naive beliefs about “priests are all holy” or “the priest is another Christ,” and so on. Indeed, I think that naive beliefs about clergy, and misleading claims of the priest as “another Christ” have contributed to a failure to face reality and to correct clerical failures in a timely manner.

A concrete case of “vocation.”

I use my own case because I am familiar with it, and it gives perhaps a different look at clergy, and how to view us in a truer light.

I do not think of myself first and foremost as a priest, or even as a Benedictine. (And I most certainly do not think of myself as “another Christ.”) For many years I have thought about this matter of self-interpretation, which relates to the issue of vocation or calling. I think of myself first and foremost, and most essentially, as a human being under the one God, part of common humanity, a member of mankind. Secondly, I am a male human being, and now a man in upper-middle age. Next in the order of what is essential, I am a human being in Christ, one who seeks to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, and to rise and follow again and again. Fourth, I am by calling and gifts a teacher, a man who seeks to share in the search for wisdom and knowledge with others. And then, further down the chain, so to speak, I have been a Benedictine monk since my late twenties; and now, living outside of the monastery, I am in effect a poor monk indeed, as monks take vows to their community for life. Still, I am a man formed spiritually in the tradition of St. Benedict, his Rule, and the communal life and prayer of English Benedictines. And then, less essentially still, I am also an ordained priest in the Catholic Church. I did not put myself forward to be ordained, but as befits a Benedictine, I was asked by my Abbot to pursue theological studies with the goal of serving as a priest--most importantly for our Benedictine community, or if needed, “outside the walls” of the cloister.

From my experiences in speaking with diocesan priests (men ordained to serve as priests in and for a particular diocese), our self-conceptions are in some significant ways different. My attitude is, in effect, more closely akin to that of fellow religious in the Church--brothers and sisters living the vowed life. Hence, I am a Benedictine brother (monk) who happens to be serving as a priest, and doing so willingly and thankfully, at least for this period of my life. But whereas I can serve in one diocese or another, or not serve in a diocese as a priest, but perhaps as a Benedictine teacher (which I have done much of my adult life), I am always a Benedictine, even when I am not functioning as a priest. As a Benedictine, my foremost obligation is crystal clear: to seek God. And this calling, I believe, accords as well with my call to follow Christ (general Christian vocation), and my foremost duty as a human being under God: “Seek the LORD and you will live.” As a priest, I need not serve in a parish or in any outwardly priestly role in the Church, but I am obligated to “offer myself up as a living sacrifice, which is my reasonable worship” (Romans 12). Then again, every Christian as Christian is called to make that same self-offering. This is an aspect of “the priesthood of all believers,” borrowing Luther’s apt phrase.

In short, as a man, as a Christian, and as a Benedictine, my foremost duty is to seek the living God, and to live in charity with my brothers and sisters (fellow human beings), and with all of God’s creation. Even if I were dispensed from my priestly or Benedictine vows, I would have the same duties. And if I work as a priest, or retire from active priestly minister, I have the same essential duties to love God and neighbor. The way that is done, the particulars of one’s life, must change with circumstances; one must be open to new or to different ways to “seek God and live.” I do not feel forced or compelled to remain serving as a priest, or even to remain a monk. I must follow wherever God leads, and seek to be open to undergo much change on my journey home. That, in short, is one decisive component of my self-understanding of my vocation. Note: There is here no room for me to think of myself as “having arrived,” as “another Christ,” or any other ideological or theological misunderstanding.

And now?

What I write is intended to be general, and apply to others, but I will proceed using my own case for study.

A question seems fitting, ever to be asked again with genuine concern by every one of us: “LORD, what would you have me do? What are you asking of me here and now? How would you have me do your will?” Because I am here--not there, or elsewhere--I presume that I should remain here “for the duration,” doing what duties require, and especially, seeking God. For I have learned that as a priest in active ministry, it is very easy to get so caught up in particular tasks--there is always more work than I can do--that I forgot my deeper, truer task and duty: to seek God.

And what does it mean for me, here and now, to “seek God?” The easy and obvious answer is, “Prayer.” But prayer means many things, and must change as one changes, or else it becomes a stale exercise. According to Benedictine wisdom, “Pray as you can; don’t try to pray as you can’t.” So one could and should ask, “How am I to pray? What kinds of prayer are most suitable for me?” Or letting go of the word “prayer,” and still wanting to know what it means to “seek God,” I wonder: How can I turn my heart and mind more fully, more truly, to the presence of the living God? What must I let go of to move into God? What must I leave behind here and now? Abraham, the man of faith, left homeland and kinfolk behind to seek the living God. What am I leaving behind now? Or to what am I clinging, that is hindering my soul’s life and movement into God?

To ask these questions is in part to answer them. To anyone willing to be honest with himself, one knows what one needs to renounce, to let go, for the sake of “entering the Kingdom of God,” or living in the truth of God here and now. By God we move to God. With trust in the power of God in us, we renounce the hindrances, and keep still, waiting for the time God has chosen to act, or to speak, or to guide us into deeper silence.

Changing expectations

How does one who seeks to follow the human vocation to seek God live with the serious flaws in the human condition, and especially with one’s own sinfulness? And more specifically for a man or woman in the Church, how does one who tries to seek God as a faithful Catholic deal with the scandals provided by clergy, let alone with one’s familiar sins and weaknesses?

When a priest fails in serious ways to present Christ in word and deed, his failure may well have strong effects on many of the faithful. Sins that are private limit a priest’s freedom, energy, and quality of person to give himself generously, as his duties require. But sins that cause a public scandal, and especially those that make Christians feel betrayed or abused or used, may have spiritual effects in human beings for years to come. Whether reasonably or not, many of the faithful expect their priests to be “men of God.” If they are found to be seriously deficient in basic human virtues--kindness, generosity, truthfulness, honesty, courage, prudence, hard work, charity, self-control, and so on--they in effect damage human souls, especially in men or women who were overly trusting or naively trusting in the first place. Those with the most unreal expectations are likely to be the most deeply damaged by clerical failures. Their souls suffer. More explicitly, their emotional life undergoes waves of anger, sorrow, grief. And their minds are often plagued by doubts about God and Christ, a deep distrust of the Church and “organized religion” generally, and clergy are viewed with suspicion, distrust, distaste, contempt. We have seen these effects not only in young people who were literally abused, but in adults as well who have at times felt “betrayed” by priestly sins.

A question emerges into consciousness: Have you been scandalized in the Church? Have I been scandalized? One powerful effect of being scandalized is that one becomes “obsessed,” in effect, by the religious or clergy who have given scandal--from sexual indiscretions, from sexual abuse of children, from habitual lying or deceit, from prolonged misappropriation of parishioner contributions or of church property, from an evident “will to power” that shows up in some clergy. The person who has been scandalized--deeply wounded--by a priest or religious in the Church may find himself or herself wrestling with powerful forces in one’s soul. The greatest danger of which I am aware is that feeling deeply and personally betrayed. In those who feel betrayed, the Church member may have to wrestle with anger at God “for allowing it to happen,” or even feel that God has abandoned His people, and left those abused or betrayed or victimized to blow defenselessly in the wind. More directly, any and all clergy and religious become viewed with deep suspicion, rendering their attempts to minister in the Church much more difficult.

The person who has been scandalized in the Church may find himself just shaking his head and asking, “How could he have done this to us? Why did he do it? And worse, why did he get away with such evil-doing for so long? Where were his religious or ecclesiastical superiors? Why did they not correct him, or remove him from active ministry or from religious life in the Church?” Or, in some extreme cases, “Why did the hierarchy fail to confront evil, but sell themselves out to `the powers that be,’ and then remain dumb in the face of very serious evil?” (The disgusting cases of Catholic and Protestant church authorities during the Nazi era come readily to mind with this question.)

Finally, questions emerge that look towards healing and recovery in the Church: Having been scandalized, what do we do? Having seen failures to correct serious wrong-doing, should one simply be silent, or challenge neglectful authorities? How does one help a fellow human being overcome the “obsession,” anger, distrust, and so on, engendered by these scandalous actions? In the face of real evils in the Church, what should the faithful do?

I raise some questions now, and intend to take them up in more detail later. These are painful issues, but must be addressed.

On The Feast Of The Epiphany

Question for today’s feast: What am I doing to come to the light, to live in the light? How am I living the gift of faith?

The light of faith is lived in two ways, I believe: by the “acts of will” that constitute love or charity; and by acts of seeking and understanding that constitute the life of the mind. We must love what we seek and seek what we love. So easily said, so difficult to do.

There is something about Christian faith, or any religious belief, that it wants to remain asleep, to be mere belief without the ongoing scrutiny of self-examination, of repentance and return to the light, of seeking the truth of reality regardless of the cost to one personally. There is something about the human mind that it wants to grab what it glimpses, and abide in possession, rather than constantly move out of itself into the Other that we call God. There is something about the human heart that induces it to love the familiar and comfortable rather than to undergo the long, painful journey towards the real light.

Abraham, the primal biblical modal of faith, was called to leave homeland and family in his journey to God. The Magi leave what is familiar to seek Christ. What is needed is a radical, insecure, life-upending adventure of faith.

Epiphany in the churches is a chance to celebrate the gift of faith. But the danger here is that the gift is seen as something given and received and then possessed, and not as something that one must ever receive afresh. More to the point, faith is seen as a kind of knowing, when in reality it is an awareness that one does not know as one ought to know, especially regarding the truth of God. Faith that is real must ever be awake, alive, searching, journeying, letting go, faring forward. With hope and love, faith seeks God for God, also for one’s own benefit, and to have something worthy to give to others.

Faith that is not seeking is not faith. Love that is not desiring to give is not love.

On Epiphany: Note #3

In the preceding two notes written for the Feast of Epiphany 2012 we very briefly examined three approaches, in effect: a literal-historical approach based on taking Matthew’s story as a real event; an attempt to suggest meanings intended by Matthew through his use of myth; and then, drawing on Joyce’s usage, a brief mention of epiphanies as personal revelations of ourselves or others in our daily lives.

It remains to consider the most important and spiritually profound meaning of Epiphany. In doing so, we will also be providing an interpretation which radiates some meaning over the three previously mentioned interpretations. Or to put the matter differently: the story of the Magi; meanings intended in the story; and small “epiphanies” that occur in relations to one another are in effect examples of Epiphany writ large: manifestations of the divine Mind in human affairs and in creation.

In the human condition, and in our attempts to understand our place in the Whole, the Divine and human are partners, sharers in the mysterious process that we may call “life,” or “truth,” or “goodness,” or “beauty,” or “revelation” (and so on), depending on what particular aspect of the mystery of the Divine-human we are exploring or emphasizing. As being in a human way--as human kinds of being--we cannot consider the Divine except in two ways: through reasoning about the Divine-human mutual participation; or through mythical imagination by which our thinking moves from a reasoned examination of ourselves and of other beings and things-- creation--towards the ultimate cause of all that is. That ultimate cause, that which was “in the Beginning,” lies beyond the reaches of reasoning. This beyond-our-limits, the Beginning of all, is that which is commonly named God.” An attempt to explore the meaning of Epiphany--of divine manifestation--could focus either on the Divine-human participation or through meditation on that which was “in the Beginning.” In the following note we focus our attention on the first-mentioned mode, epiphany as part of the Divine-human mutual sharing. Regarding a meditation towards God as the Beginning of all existing beings and things, suffice it for the present simply to suggest that the entire creative process of God could be called an Epiphany of the divine Mind, of Intellect. In this sense, the first words attributed to the Creator in the Book of Genesis, “Let there be light!” would deserve attention as a sign of the beginning of the process of God’s lightgiving, God’s self-manifestation, or Epiphany.

For the present essay, however, we will focus on the approach to the Mystery called God through reasoning about the Divine-human sharing. Here it is not primarily mythical imagination and speculation needed to arise towards the Divine, but acts of reasoning. In this sense, which is taken from the Greek use of reason or Nous, reasoning is itself a participation in God by the goodness of God. Through reasoning about and towards the Divine, a human being participates in the Divine through an exercise of what St. Anselm called “faith seeking understanding.” Or, one could say, following a phrase from the Apostle Paul, that reasoning towards and in God is part of the most essential human activity: “faith working through love.” In any case, without faith as genuine trust in God, and without love as a response to the Divine Love drawing a human being, no exploration of the Divine-human relationship is possible. In the present case, one cannot reflect adequately on the truth of Epiphany, of Divine Selfmanifestation, without engaging one’s reasoning power functioning by faith (firm trust) and love (a desiring response).

The thoughts in the preceding paragraph may be a little difficult, if they sound unfamiliar. In such cases, it makes sense to restate the matter as simply as one can, and then to proceed with the analysis. Reasoning about the mystery we call “God” is itself a sharing in the Divine Epiphany or Manifestation. When human beings think about the Divine, they can do so only through an already-existing participation in the the divine Mind. As human sides of the divine-human, we cannot proceed with knowledge--for God as such is unknown to us--but with faith; and our love can only be a response to the presence and reality of Divine Love already at work in us. We cannot generate love for God out of nothing, but out of divine action already at work in us. The Divine flows into us as love, and we arise towards the Divine in the process of faith. But faith in this experiential sense is not a belief in doctrine or stories, but an activity that can be justly characterized as firm trust, wondering, questioning, seeking. Faith as the trust that opens the human mind to the divine Mind is what one sees in the lives of prophets and apostles, philosophers and saints. “No one comes to the Father but by Me.” By Christ as the Epiphany of God, by Christ as the Light of God shining into the human heart, man arises into God.

Hence, every human being, at all times in human history, who is responding at all to the movements of the Divine are responding to some kind of Epiphany--to Christ. “Faith in Christ” is this experiential sense did not begin with the response of men and women to Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ. Faith in Christ has occurred in far more ways and times than we can know or imagine. Faith in Christ has occurred whenever a human being, drawn from within or from without by the light of the Divine, responds to that light by openness, trust, surrender, seeking the truth of God, loving kindness towards fellow creatures.

Before pushing the analysis further, let us consider: We have in effect moved from a presentation of Epiphany as recollecting the biblical story of the Magi towards reflecting on the way in which God, as divine Mind, shines into and illuminates “every soul that is coming into the world.” To reduce Epiphany to a biblical story at best misses the meaning of Epiphany , and at worst fails to help open the mind to potentials for participating in divine action here and now. That a term such as “divine Mind” may sound unfamiliar, or perhaps appears as a mere borrowing from Hegel or Mary Baker Eddy, may be unfortunate; but no better symbol for the truth of what I am seeking to express has so far come to light. These summary comments induce us to begin afresh, seeking greater clarity and understanding. For the search to clarify the meaning of the divine-human in-between or mutual participation is itself to seek to share in the process of Epiphany, of divine manifestation.

                              

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Why is the exercise of writing on Epiphany reasonably difficult? Why am I forced to think out each thought and sentence? Why cannot I not just fall back on what I have been taught, or “what the Church teaches,” or biblical stories? Why do I feel a duty to seek to understand what Epiphany is, rather than simply repeat what “we all believe,” or “what the Church teaches?” Why must we think? Why must we question? To think, to question, to seek the truth of God is to share in Epiphany. Merely to repeat what one believes is not to participate in living Epiphany, although it may help induce others to arise from the sleep of mere belief and lazy habits towards questioning. In truth, however, I think that the best way to promote sharing in the Epiphany is not a mere retelling of the story of the Magi, but to engage human minds in responding to the divine Light which is, in itself, the life of the mind. To reason about God is to share in Epiphany. To refuse to think, to question, is to style the process of epiphany. So one can choose: To seek in order to find; or presume that one has already found through belief or unbelief. I recommend the path of seeking because it is seeking God in and through divine mutual participation, or to use more familiar, “churchy” language, through grace arousing a living faith.

God acts; man responds. We respond by turning towards the light, towards the “grace” given, or by refusing to recognize, refusing to see what we have been shown, by turning away from the light. Epiphany requires human response. God enlightens; man questions. God illuminates; man rejoices in the light through seeking, or closes off. Or to speak more experientially: one sees something, and either wonders, or ignores. Questions stir, and are followed and thought about, or they are dismissed. Or perhaps they are never heard, for the mind is too busy with many things.

“What is this wondrous sight. I must go over and look.” So Moses was drawn, and responded. And in looking, he heard; and in hearing, and obeying, Moses became the carrier of the Divine Mind to any who would receive. “Where is the new-born King of the Jews? We have seen his star at its arising, and have come to worship him.” Something seen, a response made, a journey onward towards the yet unseen Light. “Who are you, LORD?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Arise, and you will be shown what to do.” Something given, response made: God acts; man responds--or could refuse. The responders become the prophets and apostles, philosophers and saints. The non-responders? “The Light has come into the world, but human beings loved darkness, rather than light, and refused to come to the light, lest their evil deeds be exposed.”

Epiphany is joyful and painful: the joy of finding the truly good; the pain of realizing one is not what or who one ought to be. Epiphany is life-giving to those who receive the light, and death-dealing to those who resist. Epiphany invites loving trust, or provokes angry and hateful rejection. Epiphany does not leave man alone, but pursues, and finds, and reveals, and discomforts, “like death, our death,” leaving one “no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation” (“Journey of the Magi”).

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A journey to be continued, or avoided: The one our task, the other an escape.

A Second Brief Meditation On Epiphany

06 January 2012    Traditional Feast of the Epiphany

Have you ever realized suddenly that you do not know someone whom you thought you knew, at least to an extent? Perhaps you were in a conversation, and the thought forces itself into consciousness, “This is not the person I thought I knew.  Why did I miss it?  Was I deceiving myself, or perhaps was s/he deceiving me?”  This epiphany is probably disturbing, and more unpleasant than pleasant.

Or again, have you experienced this strange event, this kind of epiphany:  Someone discloses to you their image of you, their hidden thoughts about you, and the person they think you are is so utterly different from the person you have come to know yourself to be?   A light goes on, in effect, and you wonder:  “My goodness!  That is the person he / she thinks I am?  That is not who I am.  Have I deceived him about me, or has he misinterpreted me?  Or perhaps he or she sees in me what I have not admitted into consciousness.  Am I perhaps really like that?”  It can be quite a surprise, a kind of inner-worldly “epiphany” or manifestation of the unknown becoming known.  And no doubt, this experience, too, is quite painful, or at least unpleasantly disturbing.

These kinds of inner-worldly epiphanies form the substance of James Joyce’s short story, “The Dead,” which in turn concludes his collections called “Dubliners.”  Set in Dublin, Ireland, on the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January) 1903, the heart of the story is a personal epiphany:  Through the power of beautiful music to evoke long-buried memories, a woman’s agony for her young lover of many years back comes back into consciousness, and she is overwhelmed with painful grief.  The inner-worldly epiphany or realization occurs in her husband:  He comes to the painful realization that his wife had kept this lost love buried in her heart for many years, and although they have been married for a quarter of a century, he has never really known his wife.  The seminal event of her early life he never knew, nor that another man had been so intensely in love with her when they were teen-agers that he risked his life and died out of love for her.  And so the husband now confesses to himself, “I have never loved a woman like that, that I would die for her.”

These are personal realizations or sudden epiphanies which can indeed be powerful, overwhelming, and open up doors for new experiences in our lives. Granted, they are not the great Epiphany of God shining into the soul.  But for a man or woman of faith, God is understood to be beyond these personal epiphanies, and even at work in them, allowing them to occur in order to move us ultimately through love of creatures into a truer, more enduring love of the Creator, the true Light.

Approaching The Feast Of Epiphany

The purpose of this brief essay is to help me clarify my thinking on Epiphany. This coming week-end we will celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, so to that end I must write a meditative note for the bulletin on Epiphany, and prepare to preach four homilies in four faith communities on the same feast. I write now to clarify my thinking before writing and preaching, and, if possible, to offer something to parishioners who want to understand what Epiphany is about.

As often, I feel a need to begin by removing a misunderstanding, or negating a common approach to a matter of faith. It seems that the usual approach to the Feast of the Epiphany is to think of it as a kind of remembering of an historical event: calling to mind that “the wise men” visited the infant Jesus (or the two-year old child, as in Matthew’s Gospel), and offered him “gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Not only do I see this approach to Epiphany to be fundamentally mistaken, but it exemplifies a common and long-standing problem throughout Christian churches: to treat symbols of faith as historical events or as “facts.” One could call this approach historical-literal, as long as one understands that “historical” here does not mean what in reality occurred at a time in the past, but what is believed to have happened, a sort of mythical “history” which has formed peoples’ consciousness over the centuries.

Let us make the preceding points more explicit, for in doing so we are making a first approach to Epiphany.

What everyday Christians ten or five centuries ago would have believed was the meaning of the Feast of Epiphany, I do not know. Perhaps for centuries many Christians have taken the narrative in Matthew’s Gospel literally, and focused on “the coming of the Magi,” of the “fact” that “three kings” or three astrologers or three men who observed the stars as the “event” being celebrated on this feast day. In truth, I do not know what Christians centuries ago made of this feast. But in popular Christianity in which most of us were raised, the “three Magi” have been treated as “kings” or as “astrologers,” and their gifts were understood either literally, or perhaps as pointing to three truths about Jesus Christ of Nazareth: that he was “the new-born King of the Jews,” that he is “Son of God,” and that he was born to die for us.” The well-known hymn, “We three Kings,” brings out these meanings of the gifts. Underneath such an approach is the fact that the traditional Gospel reading for the Feast of the Epiphany is the story of the “three Magi” who “follow a star,” an account found only in Matthew’s Gospel. What occurs without thinking through what one believes and why is the experience one encounters repeatedly in the churches: stories intended to communicate a living faith become “factualized,” taken as real events in actual history, and then just “believed” as “real.” And that is that. In other words, inner or spiritual meaning yields to the much less demanding action of taking a story literally as “historical,” and then more or less not thinking about what the story actually was intended to mean or to effect in the hearer. It is ever easier and “more comforting” simply and passively to “believe” something as true than to ask questions, and to think about what is tempted simply “to believe.”

What questions? What questions ought one ask in approaching the Feast of the Epiphany? Because Matthew’s brief story of the Magi is read, one needs to wonder: What is the Gospel writing saying? Does he intend his narrative to be factual or actual, or is he presenting spiritual meanings under the form of a story? And whether or not Matthew expects the reader of the Gospel to believe that the events “actually happened,” so what? What is the meaning of the narration? What is this evangelist really trying to communicate in writing this story? That is one set of questions. But another set is more fundamental: What is the Epiphany all about? As “Epiphany” means “Manifestation,” what is being manifested, and to whom? If “the Epiphany” was to “the wise men” (Magi) of old, what does that mean here and now for us? Or again, what is the nature of the light to which the Magi are drawn? Who manifests what to these three journeying men? What is shown, what do they see, how do they respond? And what if any “epiphanies” happen in our lives? Is there a process in the soul of every man that is being symbolically presented in the story of the Magi? Do these travelers who come to Christ symbolize all Christians, or all human beings, or perhaps all who come to the light of God-with-us, Emmanuel? Here and now, what is being manifested, by God, to every human being? What is the light shining into the darkness of human hearts that causes rejoicing, that leads one to worship “the true and living God?” What has been manifested, what is being manifested? Do we see, or turn away, or ignore what is manifested?

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The question or concern that rattles around in my mind now is this: How does one say anything on the Feast of the Epiphany without provoking the anger of historical-literal believers, who want to just believe a story as “true” without thinking about it? Explicitly, if I were to mention that the narrated events were intended to be symbolic, and not taken as (and dismissed as) “really happening,” how would people react? Why is it that at least some people in the pews--of any church, of any denomination--want to take symbols of faith literally? Is it simply routine, and what one is accustomed to doing? Or is it perhaps grounded in a kind of spiritual lethargy and passivity that is one of the hallmarks of our time? Is it not easier just to hear a story, and nod, and even nod off to sleep, rather than to think, “What does this mean? Have I come into the light, or am I wandering in darkness?” The very question would be the beginning of a real epiphany, I would think: the realization that one does not know what one ought to know, and that one has falsely assumed that he or she already “believed” and understood what they were believing. It is always dangerous to awaken a sleeping tiger, or even to light a match when folks want to remain in the sleep of mere belief.

Perhaps celebrating the Feast of Epiphany ought to lead one to an epiphany or to a number of epiphanies: “I thought I knew Christ, but I have buried him in the tomb of mere belief, of literalistic “faith,” of a mind that presumes it has found rather than one on a journey.” Or more simply, “I do not know what I thought I knew well.” And again, “Perhaps I have not had a living faith as much as a stale, stagnant, unquestioning `Christian belief.’”

The Magi in the story are searchers who “come to the light,” who come to Christ: they do not remain in their former state of religious belief and familiarity and warm, cozy comfort. As characters in the story, they journeyed into darkness, led only by a weak and distant light, over which they had no control. In this sense, they were like St. John of the Cross, perhaps: “Without other light or guide, than that which in the heart was burning.”

The light of faith always requires a leaving, and hence a dying. By faith one journeys from the familiar lights of oneself and one’s experience and past into what at first appears to be the darkness of unknowing. In the story, the Magi had to fare forward, had to leave home and family, religious practices and beliefs. They were beckoned and led on by a light they did not know, towards the source of light they could not see. It was a real journey, “costing nothing less than everything.”

Epiphany is a feast of faith as coming into light. We are not given stars to follow, or stories to believe and not to live, but symbols to provoke wonder, awe, questions. The Magi are symbols of Everyman on a journey into God. That they know that it is nothing less than the Divine whom they seek is manifested by the gifts they bear. They carry with them gifts as befits God-with-us-in-Christ. And they know that their own death is the cost,that the myrrh they carry is not only prefiguring the death of Christ, but their own death if they choose to live in Christ. To the extent that one comes into the light of the Divine Mind, how does one return to the comforting beliefs of one’s past? T. S. Eliot was surely correct when he had the Magi realize that “our death” was the cost of the Epiphany, and that once the light is seen for what it is, one cannot return to one’s former land or life, clutching alien gods.

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It remains to apply something of these thoughts to myself, and through me, to the reader. The thought occurs, “What about you, little man?” What am I doing to come to the light, to live in the light?

The light of faith is lived in two ways, I believe: by the “acts of will” that constitute love or charity; and by acts of understanding that constitute the life of the mind. We must love what we seek and seek what we love. So easily said, so difficult to do.

There is something about Christian faith, or any religious belief,that it wants to remain asleep, to be mere belief without the ongoing scrutiny of self-examination, of repentance and return to the light, of seeking the truth of reality regardless of the cost to one personally. There is something about the human mind that it wants to grab what it glimpses, and abide in possession, rather than constantly move out of itself into the Other that we call God. There is something about the human heart that induces it to love the familiar and comfortable rather than to undergo the long, painful journey towards the real light.

Epiphany in the churches is a chance to celebrate the gift of faith. But the danger here is that the gift is seen as something given and received and then possessed, and not as something that one must ever receive afresh. More to the point, faith is seen as a kind of knowing, when in reality it is an awareness that one does not know as one ought to know, especially regarding the truth of God. Faith that is real must ever be awake, alive, searching, journeying, letting go, faring forward. With hope and love, faith seeks God for God, for oneself, and for something worthy to give to others.

Faith that is not seeking is not faith. Love that is not desiring to give is not love.

A First Note On Reading And Praying The Psalms

[Warning: If you wish to cling to what you believe, and not to be disturbed by thinking, do not bother reading this short memo. It is written for those willing to wrestle with God.]

If one of us decides to read or to pray the Psalms in our Bibles, we are presented by immediate and perhaps disturbing problems. Of course, if one reads or prays anything without thinking, without being consciously conscious, so to be speak, the psalms present no problems. One could just “read the Bible” or “pray the psalms” without thinking at all, and no problem would occur. But without problems or questions or disturbances arising when one reads, nothing is gained intellectually, and perhaps not spiritually as well. Simply to put the mind into neutral--not be consciously conscious--one can read anything and not be the least disturbed. In such a state, one could read the “Communist Manifesto” of 1848 as if it were a comic strip, and sit and yawn, and rub one’s eyes, and say, “I see no problem with anything here. What’s wrong with a desire to ‘change the world?’ What’s wrong with a little bloody revolution once in a while? No one really gets hurt, do they?”

Many there are who sleep even during their lifetimes, who prefer a condition of non-consciousness, in order to “get by,” or “just to relax,” or to “have a good time.” Many Christians, from my experience, are in such a state of mind when they read, pray, or hear Scriptures being read. They just assume, “It’s the Bible,” and therefore “it must be true.” In effect, they turn off their minds, and just let the words wash over them like a warm shower. And they feel “comforted.” Indeed, from years of speaking with self-designated “Christians”--Catholic or Protestant, “mainstream” or fundamentalist--I find that most “Christians” believe that they are supposed to “just believe,” and not think, or question, or examine. In other words, being Christian” becomes an excuse to keep from thinking about spiritual or religious matters, and simply “absorb,” in a passive way, what is “in the Bible,” or “what the Church teaches,” or whatever the priest or minister happens to be preaching at them.

Well, as somebody once said, “They hear but do not hear, they look but they do not see.” Why not? Their minds are asleep, possibly because of Christianity itself, or at least the way it is believed and practiced now. For surely it was not always so. Some gave their lives as disciples of Christ. We may throw a few bucks into the plate, and then yawn, and return to sleep. (This is a case of “playing church,” I would say.)

My experience in reading and praying the Bible seems to be rather different from that of many church-going Christians. For as soon as I try to read or to pray one of the psalms in our bibles, or a psalm in the breviary for Catholic clergy and religious, I find myself disturbed, jarred, on edge, even guarded against what is said. Yes, the words may be beautiful or flat, familiar or not, but they nearly always come at me from a thought-world so alien to my own that I am forced to wrestle with what is said. More particularly, I immediately feel myself forced to ask, “Is this true?” and "What does this mean?” Nearly none of the formulations in the psalms come to my mind as obvious, or as simply true, even though I have prayed many of these psalms hundreds of times. Rather than lull my mind to sleep--the way much preaching does for many people--the psalms annoy me, they tease me, they “lift me up and throw me down.” They demand thought. In a better phrase, the psalms force me to wrestle, even when I do not want to. (Perhaps wrestling with God is indeed part of the cost of discipleship. Does not Israel mean, “He who wrestles with God?”)

Now, what is there about the psalms in particular, or about reading or praying the bible in general, that causes such a reaction? Why does scripture force one to be uncomfortable and to think--unless one chooses to keep his or her eyes closed? What is going on here? Why do these words provoke me, even when I sit to pray quietly and “simply be aware of God’s presence?” Could it be that God wants to stir us up, and not leave us spiritually asleep in our familiar beliefs, creeds, and practices? One problem I have is that I have read so many different translations, and only rarely tried to study the original Hebrew, so from the first line of a psalm I must wonder about the translation, its accuracy, and whether the original text really says what the translator has it say. The same applies to the Gospels and to other biblical texts, but for the present, let us focus on the psalms. (In the case of the New Testament, I can and do consult the original Greek to check the translations, and to find deeper meanings in the texts.)

We return to the psalms, our present focus. Begin at the beginning. Consider the first psalm. One opens a Bible or breviary and may read (I am using the Grail psalter here):

        “Happy indeed is the man....”

So begins the psalter, this collection of 150 poem-prayers. Or is this the beginning at all? Are these the first words? Immediately I am aware of different translations: “Happy indeed is the one,” because some translator wanted to avoid “sexist language.” And another: “Blessed is the man,” and the word “blessed” to me means primarily “graced by God,” but not necessarily “happy” in any usual sense of the word. Then again, I am well aware of the long-standing Christian practice of reading Christ into the psalms, so the first line in effect can be heard to say: “Blessed indeed is Christ...” And then I recall another translator’s work that tried to avoid “sexist language,” by saying “Happy indeed are they...,” as if the difference between one and some or many is utterly irrelevant. And that plural word, “they,” explicitly excludes the possibility of reading Christ into the psalm, or it forces one to place Christ on the same level as the others in the word “they,” whoever these others may be. Yes, for some “progressive” folks, “Christ is our brother” (with the implication: not the LORD). I do not like to waste my mind or my time with such matters.

Such are a few of my thoughts aroused by the first line of the first psalm. And what I wanted to do was to pray, not to be dragged into controversies and disputes about words, or various so-called “theological reflections” (which in truth have nearly nothing to do with God, the sole proper object of theology). And note well: I did not ask to have these thoughts arise, I did not go out looking for them. They flood into consciousness because of past experiences of reading various translations, and from being aware of the long-standing tradition of finding Christ in the psalms--a questionable practice, perhaps, but an approach found beneficial by some true theologians and saints. Whatever happened to prayer? What happened to a quiet reflect on the “word of God?” My mind has been forced to consider matters that seem relatively unimportant, or at least I have had to deal with “questions that do not tend to edify.”

Or do they? Is it not good to wonder about whether a man is happy or blessed, or whether the words read apply to Christ or not, or to some other particular person, or to some generalized “they?” What is wrong with being aware of various translations, and juggling them in one’s mind? May they perhaps push me to check out the original Hebrew, and to think for myself, without the veil laid on the text by various translators? Surely there is no substitute for reading a text in the original language, and that applies to scriptures as to any other significant document.

If I had my way, I would apply my mind to other questions than to those raised above, to matters that may indeed “tend to edify,” rather than to these issues forced on me when I read the first line of the first psalm. If I indeed do seek “edification” and not mere “quibbling,” perhaps I should press on and consider more of the first sentence:

         Happy indeed is the man
         who follows not the counsel of the wicked...

Again, I read the words on the page, and pause. This thought seems rich, and suggestive. It would be tempting, however, to assume that the one reading the psalm--you or I--”follows not the counsel of the wicked.” But that does not fit my experience, at least not to the extent that it should. Reading this second line brings into my mind a disturbing, personal question, and one which I either must answer, or avoid by letting my eyes race on to the next line. The question is: Do I follow the counsel of the wicked? That one question could lead to considerable self-examination. When have I followed “the counsel of the wicked?” Do I assume that I am blameless in this regard? Not at all. In which of my actions, or thoughts, or attitudes, have I followed the lead, not of God’s voice and Spirit, but of wicked impulses, or wicked human beings? Am I perhaps “following the counsel of the wicked” here and now, by raising questions about “the holy bible,” and not just “believing the Word?” (Short response to the last question: You have a mind. Use it. That honors the Creator more than giving lip service to “sacred books.”)

If one did not follow “the counsel of the wicked,” then one would be “happy” or “blessed,” or so says the psalmist. But is that true? How many evildoers actually prosper in this world, at least for a long time, and “get away with it?” (This issue is indeed raised by more than one psalm, for a psalmist, too, “has seen how the wicked prosper.” ) Perhaps one should ask oneself a question: Would you rather be happy or blessed, at any price, or would you rather avoid doing evil, whether or not you are happy or blessed? If you had to choose, which would it be: To be “happy and blessed,” or to avoid evil at all costs? Would you choose to avoid evil even if doing so would bring you much pain, loss of friends, loss of property, disrespect, even physical harm and death? Again, one may think of Christ: Did he not renounce being “happy” or even being “blessed by God” in order not only to avoid “the counsel of the wicked,” but to do what he truly believed was for the radical good of others? Was Christ “happy” or “blessed” when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Was not Aristotle correct in saying that no one can be happy when they are being tortured? (And crucifixion is surely an extreme form of torture.) Christ avoided the counsel of the wicked, he avoided falling into the religious patterns and practices of the Pharisees, he spoke the truth apart from mouthing religious platitudes, and he took the extreme consequences for his actions: radical rejection, torture, death.                                    
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Stand back. Return to the surface. Perhaps I have taken the easy way out on the problem raised: Being presented by numerous questions and problems as soon as one seeks to read or to pray the psalms, and indeed, perhaps most of the collection we call “the bible.” The larger issue I have not yet raised, perhaps avoided: Many of the formulations in the psalms not only do not make sense, but they seem to be mythical; and even far worse, at least some of the words seem to display a break from common sense, or from a desire to act nobly. Cursing one’s enemies, a desire for revenge, the lust for power and wealth, are famous examples of the latter--the break from moral goodness. But the more serious problem, surely for me, is this: How can one pray from within a mindset that is not only mythical, but which often seems to be just plain foolish? Or if not “foolish,” at least cotton-brained. One wonders what some of these psalmists did to open their mouths, utter words, and disengage their minds. Did they really believe some of the apparently nonsensical things they utter? Did they grow out of such beliefs? And why were they collected and preserved? Could we be in a similarly benighted spiritual state as some of the psalmists? Am I? “Is it I, LORD?”

I will give a few examples of muddled-thinking as they come readily into consciousness, as I remember past experiences reading the psalms. I find the talk about God “coming down with a black cloud under his feet,” and similar language, to be nonsensical and silly. One can dismiss it as “poetry,” but it seems to have been uttered by some fellow with a graphic imagination, but from a mind with a bizarre conception of “the Almighty.” Or even if one could rationalize such an utterance by calling it “mere poetry,” then one must wrestle with its effects on hearers. How many of our people are being encouraged to entertain such childish and strange conceptions of God, rather than to grow up spiritually and let go of thoughts about God “coming down” from “on high,” and setting everything right--whether or not “he” has a “black cloud under his feet” or not? Do not such phrases nourish a rather primitive and childish conception of what we call “God”? Or again, does this entire “poetic” approach to God, so common in the psalms, protect a person from having to face the utter darkness of God, without images and childish beliefs?

What am I saying? Do many of our biblical texts--the psalms, or the prophets, or even Gospels and of course the “book of Revelation”--hinder spiritual growth? Are the images often so loose, so wild, so poetically uncontrolled, that they fill the mind of the hearer with strange beliefs, and even superstitions? Can that be? Isn’t it “the holy bible?” Is it not “the word of God?”

In a word: For my part, I trust that Christ is the Word of God, and not a book. It was the man Jesus, and not a book, who was crucified for us. It is in Christ, not in the law or in a book, that one finds life, even as the law and books can point one to life in God. As for books and writings, they share in the human condition: imperfection and perishing. And the same writings that can provoke thought in some can lull other minds to sleep. Christ never lulls a mind to sleep, for he is the great questioner: “Why are you afraid? Don’t you have faith?”

Good things can have bad effects, if they are not interpreted properly. Minds can be filled with bizarre conceptions of the Almighty if one does not make the hard effort to think about what one is reading or praying, and to seek the truth through and beyond the images. That in short is my foremost problem with praying or reading the psalms: Rather than awakened to seek the true and living God beyond the words, the mind can be lulled to sleep, comforted or disturbed by all sorts of images, and refuses to ask the questions, “Is this true?” “What does this mean for my life?” “LORD, what would you have me do?” And above all, “Who are you, LORD?” Bibles and scriptures may give answers to questions not asked, and serve to keep human beings from asking questions that each one of us should ask. Even the psalms can be a drug to dull the mind, rather than be used as a means of ascending from sleep-in-oneself toward, or into, genuine life in God.

Not Another New Year's Resolution, But A Life Goal

Throughout my life I have heard people around me and in the media speak about “setting New Year’s resolutions.”  In my younger years, when I was more willing to accept without much thought the opinions and beliefs of society, I used to set “New Year’s resolutions.”  Not one of all of these resolutions even comes to mind now, but I recall having made quite a few.  And I also recall that after a few weeks, or perhaps a month or two, whatever resolutions I had made had just as quickly faded from consciousness, and become in retrospect another rather meaningless and empty exercise.

“When I became a man, I gave up childish ways,” the Apostle Paul wrote to his disciples in Corinth.  Well, I gave up trying to make “New Year’s resolutions,” and carrying them out.  In essential respects, New Year’s Day, the first day of January, is no different from any other day of the year:  There is darkness; then sunrise and hours of sunlight; then darkness once again; and another day comes.  There is nothing magical or essentially different about “the first day of the year.”  One could make a stronger case, perhaps, for the significance of the two solstices that occur each year:  the winter solstice when days cease shortening, and the period of sunlight will begin to grow; and the summer solstice, when the day of maximal light has occurred, and hours of daylight begin to shorten.  These two days are, for those living on earth, perhaps the most significant days thinking cosmologically, or giving the physical world in which we find our place its rightful respect.  Some date needed to be chosen to mark a “New Year,” and for reasons unknown to me, in our western culture that day is January 1.  But it could have been March 1, or June 21, or August 15, or any other day of the year.  Any such date is by convention, or by agreement or custom; the time and dating of the solstices, on the contrary, exist “by nature,” as they are grounded in physical reality:  At two points each year, the earth ceases to tilt away from, or toward the sun, and then begins its motion in the opposite direction.  Hence, the sun appears to “stand still” (the literal meaning of “solstice”) twice a year.  On “New Year’s Day,” by contrast, nothing stands still, nothing substantially changes.  Indeed, many remain relatively unconscious, having soaked their minds in booze the night before.  What is new here?

To follow up briefly on the contrast between the winter solstice (roughly 21 December) and New Year’s Day (01 January), I would say this:  Although I make no “resolutions” on 1 January “for the New Year,” I have long been aware that with the winter solstice and the subsequent gradually increasing growth in daylight hours I find in myself renewed energy, a longing to see winter forces yield to more moderate spring, and a desire to watch life return in all of its beauties in the world around me.  Although the season of winter officially or in common speech only begins with the winter solstice, the growth of light foretells the transition from dark and cold to light and warmth.  In the famous words of the poet, “If winter’s here, can spring be far behind?”  No, indeed.  And then summer, and fall, and winter once again.  And the cycles continue before and after time.  

So rather than “make New Year’s resolutions” (a popular and usually futile act), what might we do in this season of the year?  The same thing that we need to do every day of our conscious lives:  Seek to live well our human lives.  One cannot “choose” or “resolve” to be a human being.  That is by nature what we are.  But we can choose to become more truly human, to become better human beings, to live more truly the divine life that remains forever our destiny and God’s gift to us.  In Goethe’s well known phrase, “Become who you are.”  And that means:  Become a real human being, ein Mensch.  That is our common human task--for all of us.

The intense and real danger for all of us today is that we have “so much to do,” are so busy, have so many duties, that we forget our most decisive task:  To struggle again and again to open ourselves up to the truth and reality of the divine life that flows within.  Spiritual life is no given.  It is not something one has because one has been baptized, or merely because one shares in religious rituals, or even because one receives the Eucharist frequently.  We can all just go through the motions of living, and do so relatively mindlessly.  Our task is to be awake in our own lifetime, here and now; to recognize our ever-present tendencies to turn away from the Light; to reject the darknesses within and without; and to seek ever to move into the Light by the Light.  

There is no substitute for the all-demanding effort to grow spiritually.  No resolutions will suffice, no “good works,” and most surely no escapes into busyness, entertainment, drug stupors, social activities, the idolatry of sports, and so on.  A real danger for self-designated Christians is that we think that because we are “Christians,” we are alive in the Spirit.  One only needs to remember how many “good Christians”--evangelical and Catholic alike--cooperated with the Nazis and threw Jews and other “undesirables” into the gas chambers.  One may be a “good Christian,” and so respectful of “the Bible,” and “the Church authorities,” and “the doctrine,” and so on, and be a very questionable human being.  

Not a resolution, but a goal, a task:  To become a true human being, made to the image of God, loving the divine in all of its manifestations, and ever renouncing the forces that close one off to divine reality.  There is no substitute for this most basic task.  To think that the task is easy, is done in a moment, or that one “has arrived” or “is saved,” is self-deception and an escape from the ever-present human task, written above the doorway at Delphi in ancient Greece:  “Know yourself, that you are a human being, and not a god.”